John Foxx & The Belbury CircleEmpty Avenues

Ghost Box / GBX019CD / GBX019EP

John Foxx & The Belbury Circle'Empty Avenues'

1 review »Influential electronic pop veteran John Foxx teams up with Ghost Box’s finest on this latest EP, which sees Jim “Belbury Poly” Jupp and Jon “Advisory Circle” Brooks joining forces to back him as the Belbury Circle. It’s much more pop than I expected, with Foxx’s multitracked vocals taking the fore with bold harmonised melodies while the Belbury Circle prod ... »

REVIEWS

Influential electronic pop veteran John Foxx teams up with Ghost Box’s finest on this latest EP, which sees Jim “Belbury Poly” Jupp and Jon “Advisory Circle” Brooks joining forces to back him as the Belbury Circle. It’s much more pop than I expected, with Foxx’s multitracked vocals taking the fore with bold harmonised melodies while the Belbury Circle produce a flawless bed of nostalgia-tinged synthpop beneath it.

The songs are good but I’m quite taken aback by how pop it is, often verging on Tears For Fears-ish territory, and part of me wishes they’d gone a bit more out-there with the library synths, but then I’m one of those people who wants everything as weird as possible. Pye Corner Audio’s remix at the end is excellent, taking the title track into darker and more foreboding territory and throwing in some slow pulsating synth loops to give it more of a highway chase feel.

I’m initially not as excited about this as I hoped but I strongly suspect it has hidden depths and subtleties which will reveal it to be more than first meets the eye over future listens. The songs are catchy and bold and the synths sound great. I think maybe I just wanted it to be a bit less tasteful.